Poll: Nearly 25% of Americans Would Consider Secession

20 Sep 2014

Nearly 25% of Americans, largely fueled by their anger toward the permanent political class in Washington, D.C., would consider secession.

According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released a day after voters in Scotland rejected an “independence referendum” by nearly 10 points, “23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion.”

The poll found that the “urge to sever ties with Washington cuts across party lines and regions,” and anger with President Barack Obama on Obamacare and foreign policy and a “long-running Washington gridlock had prompted them to wonder if their states would be better off striking out on their own.”

The poll found that “Republicans were more inclined to support the idea, with 29.7 percent favoring it compared with 21 percent of Democrats.” And while secession “was least popular in New England,” it “was most popular in the Southwest, where 34.1 percent of respondents back the idea.”

In Texas, “where an activist group is calling the state’s legislature to put the secession question on a statewide ballot,” a respondent said he was “confident his state could get by without the rest of the country.” But Reuters noted that “even in Texas, some respondents said talk about breaking away was more of a sign of their anger with Washington than evidence of a real desire to go it alone,” and that threat could make legislators in D.C. listen to their concerns more.